Pushing Send (5 page)

“Are you?”

“No. They don’t call home until after second period class, and I’ll be there by then.”

“I think I would really like to just go home.” My parents will be fine with it. Mom’s at work and Dad will never know I even left.

“Really? Now, why would you do that and miss out on a perfectly good day at school?” He smirks and points to my phone. “You have some reading to catch up on?”

“Maybe.” I try to hold back a smirk … and fail.

chapter three

Prom

After catching up on my messages and Instagram responsibilities, I feel better. Claire is still acting the same, and Lana and I mended fences.

I see Lana running down the hall, smiling from ear to ear. Then she slides past me as she tries to slow down, and I laugh.

“Joey asked me to freaking prom. Joey freaking White asked me to freaking prom!” She grabs both my hands and jumps up and down, and being a good friend, I jump with her. “Joey Freaking White, Hadley! Joey Freaking—”

“Is that his middle name?” I laugh.

“My mom’s gonna flip. I mean, she thinks he’s a doll. She told me he was the kind of boy I need.” Her mouth keeps running until we get outside where Pax pulls up.

“You girls need a lift?”

“Sure do.” Lana practically pushes me into the backseat of the car and then climbs in the front, still talking.

Pax raises an eyebrow and gives me a “
WTH
” look, shaking his head.

“Lana, take a breath, girl.” He laughs.

“Joey—” she begins.

“Freaking,” I interrupt, laughing.

“White asked me to prom, Pax. He asked me to—”

“That guy’s kind of an ass, Lana.” Pax gives her a sideways glance as he pulls out of the school parking lot.

“He’s your friend,” she gasps.

“We play on the same teams and are cordial, but I wouldn’t say that makes us best buds or BFFs, as you’d say.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She waves her hand flippantly through the air. “Can you drop me off at Dad’s office? I need to talk to Mom. She’s gonna be ecstatic for me.”

“What about your friend, Lana?” He motions back to me.

“You don’t mind, do you, Hadley? Pax can take you home. It’s okay, right?”

“Sure.” I smile and look down. I am becoming less and less nervous around Pax and enjoying more and more of our conversations without anyone around.

Lana is busy looking through dresses on her phone and talking about Joey “Freaking” White for the entire ride to Dr. Jamison’s medical office where Lana’s mom is the office manager. Pax barely has time to stop the car outside the building before Lana is jumping out.

“Call you later. Love you, Hadley. Love you, Pax. Mwah!” She slams the door.

Pax pushes his aviators on top of his head, then leans over to open the door. “You gonna stay back there or get up here?”

I climb out of the backseat and then slide into the front.

He pulls out of the parking lot and looks over at me, his glasses back over his eyes. “You figure out who you are yet?”

“Actually I think I’ve figured everyone else out.”

“Really?” He chuckles. “Let’s hear it.”

I take a deep breath, then look over at him and sigh.

“You can trust me, Hadley. I was hoping I had proved that already.”

“Well, I know Bee and Skylar have always gone to our school. They are best friends, but have a different group of friends, as well. Skylar moved here in sixth grade, but always hung around with Bee. I’ve never really gotten to know either of them outside of school besides sketching in the park, but from what I’ve seen, Bee is a serious fangirl. She’s always wearing tee shirts with fandom references and those sorts of things. She wears nerdy glasses that look like Stuart from
The Internship
. Lana, Bee, Skylar, and I sit together at lunch, and I feel comfortable with them, but still a little on the outside of their circle.

“Bee is a total firecracker. She’s sweet and shy in front of teachers, adults, and people she has to please, but when she’s not around them, she’s crazy. She’s super funny and kind of random.

“Skylar is a little different. She is artistic and kind. She has a blog where she posts her photographs and pictures of her paintings. She has a huge following, and like, a thousand people check her blog every day. She’s top of the class, quiet, and really nice. I don’t know as much about her as I do Bee.”

“So, is that it? No one else?” he asks, as he moves through the green light.

I take in a deep breath, trying to give him the trust he’s asked for. He’s right; he hasn’t done anything except be nice to his little sister’s new friend.

“There are a few main groups. There are the nerds.” He laughs, making me feel at ease and even more comfortable, so I continue. “I don’t call them that to their faces, but I honestly don’t think it’s a bad thing to be a nerd. Bee considers herself a “nerd,” and she’s awesome. To me, she seems more of a fangirl, and from what I’ve learned, fangirls are great. They don’t get wrapped up in drama; they simply read.

“I mean, I don’t think it’s necessary to call them nerds just because they get good grades and read a lot, or maybe they wear glasses. They’re usually exceedingly nice and smart, so I have banished nerd from my classification. I call them intelligens, the Latin word for intelligent. I decided to translate the stereotypes for the groups into Latin.”

“So that’s one of your secrets?”

“No, I use it in a role-play, and it’s caught on.”

“Look at the new girl starting trends.”

“We’re all new girls online.” I think about that for a moment. “Actually, we’re not. It’s a very comfortable environment.”

“But it kills the social skills.”

“So they say.” I roll my eyes.

He smirks. “Okay, so where do I fit in?”

He plays sports. Heck, he’s the captain of the varsity basketball team. From what I have heard, he also plays football and baseball. “You’re one of the jocks.”

“Because I play sports? You think that’s all I am?” he jokes.

“Jocks also consist of the cheerleaders.” I smile and look away. “You all rule the school, make or break—”

“You play sports, too, so—”

“So nothing. I’m not a jock.” I shake my head. “Then there are the kind ones. They don’t necessarily dive face first on the ground to catch a fallen pencil for someone, but they’re the ones who would pick up said pencil and carry the books for kids on crutches. I call them amicus, the Latin word for kind. Then there are the neutrals. If I must put myself in a bubble, that’s the one I guess I would fit best in. I’m not all that smart or nice or athletic. I’m me: just a kid, just a new girl.”

“So you’re still working on figuring yourself out then.” He smiles as he hangs a left. “Advice?”

“Sure,” I say, knowing either way, I am going to get it.

“Stop trying to figure everyone else out and focus on you, Hadley. Find out who you want to be and become that person.”

“Have you figured out who you are and who you’re supposed to be?” I shoot back at him.

“I think so. I hope so.” He nods.

“Care to share?”

“I want to be me.” I look over at him and he shrugs.

Nothing more is said as we drive down Main Street, but inside, I know I wouldn’t want him to be anyone else.

I look toward the pizza shop and see Claire with her cheerleader friends. I wave, but she doesn’t return it.

Odd
, I think to myself. Maybe she didn’t see me.

I look over, hoping Pax didn’t see that, but of course he did.

He shakes his head. “She’s either being a world class snob or didn’t see you. Either way, who cares, right?”

“Right.”

Pax pulls in his driveway and parks.

“Thanks for the ride,” I say as I start to get out.

“I was coming this way,” he replies with a smirk.

I step out and shut the door. “Goodnight.”

As I’m walking away, I hear him yell, “Hey, new girl, your backpack?”

“Right, sorry.” I hurry over and take it from him.

He doesn’t let go until I look up at him, and then he smiles. “You know what you’re in for?”

“Pardon me?”

“With Lana? She’s going to be over the top about this, you know.” He pushes his glasses up on top of his head.

The brilliant blue of his eyes never ceases to amaze me. It makes me lose my train of thought and the ability to form an intelligent sentence.

“Yeah.”

“Yeah?” He chuckles. “You sure?”

“Yeah,” I repeat, taking my bag. “Thank you for the ride. Goodnight.”

As I am walking away again, Pax yells, “Hey, new girl.” I can’t help smiling as I turn around. “She smiles.”

“She does, once in a while.” I roll my eyes.

“She should more often. Life is good, Hadley, just remember to breathe.”

“You, too, Pax.”

“I never forget.”

“Well, I’m glad.”

He holds his hand to his chest. “I think we just had a moment, new girl.” I roll my eyes and he laughs. “Breathe.”

~*~

Pax was right; Lana is crazy. She isn’t role-playing on Instagram anymore; she is posting pictures of dresses, hairstyles, shoes, everything you could think of that is prom-related.

She is also giddy, happy all the time, and spending a lot of time between classes with Joey ‘Freaking’ White. Although I miss her, along with our conversations and normal schedule, I understood and would not get jealous or put off by it. I know how she felt when I did that to her during field hockey.

Pax messages me several times with the word ‘Breathe,’ even from the car on our way to school when she is in the passenger seat, going off on a tangent about another upcoming shopping trip with her mother. I laugh as he rolls his eyes, looking at me in the rearview mirror.

“I know, right.” Lana laughs, thinking I am laughing at her. “Like it bothers me that Claire bought the dress I posted last week for prom. Like I’m stupid enough to put my actual dream dress up.”

“Smart thinking, Lana,” Pax nods to her and then looks back at me and winks.

He winked!

“Always thinking smart, brother.” She laughs again.

Lana is on a high, like seriously acts as if she’s a different person, but I’m glad she’s happy. Happiness is something I feel more and more of every day. I have friends; a sport I am good at; my mother seems less intent on spreading sunshine and actually seems to be taking in the rays, enjoying the fact that I seem to be settled in here at Blue Valley; and that makes me happy, too.

I lean back and look out the window at the crystal blue sky. It is calming, inviting, and it makes me feel the same as the way I felt the one time I saw the ocean.

I peek back at the rearview mirror to see Pax’s glasses still sitting on top of his head. It occurs to me then that there are three things in the universe that ease my worry—the sky, the ocean, and his eyes.

My stomach flutters at the realization, and then it turns. Pax—the boy who calls me ‘new girl,’ who seems to be around all the time, the one who helps me make sense of all my awkwardness and embarrassments—is calming to me.

This doesn’t sit well with me. Not at all. I certainly do not want to be a girl who depends on a man for her happiness. My mother said once that Dad made her happy, so I see now it doesn’t last.

“I can’t believe you said you’d go to prom with her.” Lana’s mood flips like a light switch. After getting over the shock in that, I feel a different kind of stomach-feeling—nausea.

“My date moved away in December, and I didn’t really care about prom, anyway. Mom is the one pushing me to go. Claire’s date and her—”

“She could find someone else,” she spews.

He shakes his head and sighs. “Well, just think of it this way, Lana; we’ll be there together.”

Like a switch, she’s back to smiling. “We’ll have great pictures.” She laughs. “And you better be nice to Joey.”

He nudges her. “I’ll be nice, always am.”

He is right; he is always nice.

I am stupid for allowing myself to feel for him for more than a fleeting moment. I am not a stupid girl.

~*~

We are at my mom’s shop, where her booth sits in the corner, which she is over-zealous about since “It has the most space
.
” She smiles every time she talks about it.

Mom is doing four girls’ hair this morning and then, this afternoon, four more. Lana is getting hers done at her mother’s hairdresser’s; a loose up-do that settles on the left side with soft curls coming down. How do I know this? I have helped her practice all week long, every day after school.